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On Saturday 24th January, ITF Secretary General, Master Nicholls conducted a seminar in Cardiff, Wales – it was the very first seminar for the groups that form part of Wales-ITF.

Keen for as much inclusiveness as possible for this first seminar, students from Yellow Belt to 5th degree and from 7 years and over trained together for 3 hours with Master Nicholls and Master Ian Lawes, himself a senior Welsh Taekwon-do master of many years.

We started with an analysis of the knee-spring movement, learning to propel the body mass into a technique. Master Nicholls explained the similarity with a bow and arrow – when a bow is drawn to fire an arrow, the elasticity of the bow stores potential energy before transforming that energy into rapid motion. With knee-spring in Taekwon-do we can project our attacking tool or blocking tool along with body mass in a similar way.

We then spent the remainder of the session on kicking drills. The masters were keen to emphasise that kicks must be practiced in different ways. First, we learn the basic technique, and we train with perfect balance. In this way, we can execute multiple kicks whilst standing on one leg. This develops muscles and flexibility. But once we have grasped the kick, we then must also train it for power; allowing ourselves to be off balance at the moment of impact so that body mass can flow into the kick’s trajectory. The difference in power when kicking pads in this way is, of course, obvious.

For many people, it was their first chance to train with Master Nicholls and Master Lawes and the feedback was very positive.

It was a great start to Wales-ITF and we will continue to promote the spirit of Taekwon-do over the next few weeks: we have a Welsh ITF Championships on Sunday 15th February and a Sparring Seminar on Saturday 7th March with Master José Maidana.